Once again I thank my betas.

Blood Bonds

Chapter Four - Part Two

Echoes from the past

In the past, others have claimed to be the reincarnated Nerevar of prophecy. The most recent is known as Peakstar [...] The Temple notes that these False Incarnates discredit the Nerevarine prophecies. Singularly, and illogically, the Ashlanders acknowledge a history of false claimants, calling them "Failed Incarnates," but they regard them as proof of the validity of the prophecies, rather than contradiction.

Notes from Huleeya

The carriage rocked back and forth as it advanced through the narrow and twisting streets of Honfleur. Escorting it was a group of half a dozen knights, each as tall as one and a half men, that managed to keep pace with the carriage even on foot.

All things considered, it was far from the most difficult environment where Louise had to treat a wound.

"Ouch, ouch!"

"Stay still, Kirche, I'm almost done."

The Germanian had gotten hurt when she sliding down the ropes, and her palms were now sporting severe burning marks. Adrenaline had stopped her from noticing it, but after things calmed down she started feeling the pain.

"There. Are you better? Once we find a water mage we'll have them look at your wounds."

Kirche raised her bandaged hands to her eyes, unsuccessfully trying to flex her fingers. "I'm feeling better already! And, hey, you didn't call me an idiot this time around!"

"I'm too tired for that. Just be more careful next time, alright?"

Kirche had been left with little mobility on her hands, but despite that she managed to give Louise a thumb-up

With that done, Louise focused on the other two passengers aboard their transport: the two women that she knew as her aunts Daphne and Amethyst. They had similar black hair with thin noses and slender necks. They didn't look exactly the same, despite claiming to be twins, but there was enough of a similarity there to call them siblings. They also looked to be around thirty or forty, but with what Louise now knew of them their real age could easily be ten times that number. There were also no traces of the wounds that Louise and Kirche had inflicted on them.

Louise folded her arms and stared at them waiting for her aunts to start the conversation. They didn't, and just stared back at her in turn. The expression on Amethyst's face was severe, but Daphne shifted nervously on her seat, throwing glances both at Louise and at her sister.

In that tense stalemate, it was Kirche who broke the silence.

"So…" She scratched the back of her head. "What was Louise as a child?"

Daphne perked up at that. "Oh, she was adorable! And human. An adorable human."

"Daphne, we are angry at her." Her sister admonished her as she aimed an index at Louise. "And you, we'll talk when we're back at the base."

"Hey! Don't speak to Louise like that!"

"And who are you anyway?"

"I'm Kirche von Zerbst." She replied with a smug expression on her face.

One of Amethyst's eyebrows shot up. "A Zerbst? How did that happen?"

"That's a long story." Louise shook her head stepping into the brewing discussion. "And I don't need you to defend me, Kirche."

"Sorry, I just want to help."

"And I appreciate that but this is a family matter."

Kirche snickered. "I think this stopped being just a family issue when they tried to kill me too."

"We weren't trying to kill you! I did ask you to surrender but you didn't listen."

"No surprises there, Kirche never does."

With tensions lowered, it took them a moment to put their ideas together.

"It seems you follow Karin's example on surrounding yourself with strange companions." Amethyst's words were coated with a dash of levity, even if there was still anger behind them.

"You fought alongside mother?"

"A long time ago, even before your sister Eleonore was born."

Daphne clenched her fists against her chest. "We own a lot to her and that's why we promised to help her however we could."

Louise folded and unfolded her arms. She had found out a lot of new things about her family in the last couple of hours and she wondered what else was there to find. "I never knew."

"She never told anyone of you three." Amethyst's jaw went stiff. "She didn't want any of you to have the life she had."

"Well!" Louise couldn't contain herself from chuckling. "That didn't work out for me, did it?"

And then there was the sound of a metallic fist knocking against the side of the carriage.

"Okay, we are here."

In just a moment the carriage came to a stop so the four of them could descend.

"Wow!" Kirche gasped looking at their destination. "You like to travel in style!"

The place they have arrived at was a massive oval amphitheater for more than five thousand people. The building was a relic of a bygone era, dating back to the times of the great Gallian Empire of when several bloodsports had been enjoyed. How many people had died in that place to a cheering crowd? How many bones were buried below it? Those same questions Louise had asked herself when she saw the Imperial Arena, and was reminded that for all its power the Cyrodilic Empire could be just as brutal as the Halkeginia of old.

Adjacent to the Gallian amphitheater there was a manor made of stone and marble, the Imperial Villa, build for the Gallian Emperor's exclusive use when he came to enjoy the gladiatorial battles. After the fall of the Gallian Empire the villa was turned into a private residence, then a public building, then robbed, and finally abandoned. Now it was slowly coming back together under the work of several diligent maids, all under the watch of Isabella's silent soldiers.

"Oh, the pink one. It's nice to see you again, you're interesting." The one to receive them was the Gallian Princess Isabella. To her side there was the always silent Charlotte, and behind this last one was a person that Louise wasn't expecting to see there: the maid Siesta, acting as if Charlotte was a shield against the Princess.

They were in a circular room, recently reconstructed. Parts of the wall still needed repairs, with some marble panels needing to be replaced, and the smell of moss and humidity still lingered in the air. At first glance, one wouldn't notice that the building spent decades uninhabited.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, your highness." Louise bowed, showing respect, a concept that was alien to Kirche.

"Hello, Charlotte's sister! Hello, Charlotte! Hello Siesta!" She waved at the three of them.

"And this one." Isabella gestured at Kirche, her face scowling as if she had smelled something nefarious. "I really don't understand your choices of partners, dear sister."

For her part, Charlotte's face remained an emotionless mask. "Good evening."

Behind them, Siesta just smiled and waved.

"Your highness!" Guiche took a step forward and then dropped to a knee. "It's my duty to inform you that once again our mission ended in failure."

Isabella placed a hand under her chin as she threw him a condescending look. "You're accustoming me to disappointment."

The boy flinched. "My apologies, your highness. But we found new information! This can…"

With a raised palm, Isabella silenced him. "Spare me. You know the way to the conference room, there you will talk about all that must be discussed."

"O-of course, your Highness. But won't you be joining us?"

"No." She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "My sister will later inform me of what you talk about." And with that, she turned around and left the room.

Guiche raised up and fixed the neck of his shirt. "Well." He turned to look at Louise. "Follow me, please."

He led them towards the southern wing, crossing through several hallways that were still under construction with dozens of maids bringing in new wooden beams and furniture to replace the rotten ones. What caught Louise's attention was that all the maids looked the same. The last time she had seen them she had only met two, and assumed they were twins. Now she was seeing dozens of them, all sharing the same face.

"They all smell the same." Daphne said under her breath, noticing her niece's unease. Louise didn't reply.

Kirche made some small talk with Charlotte -or at least she talked while Charlotte listened- and in just a moment the group reached their new destination. It was a room illuminated by several magical candles, and inside it they found a large wooden table covered by dozens of paper. A cursory glance told Louise that those had been written in at least three different languages.

Guiche took his seat at one end, flanked at one side by Louise's aunts, and at the other by Charlotte and Siesta. This last one darted her eyes around as if not understanding what she was doing there.

Louise and Kirche claimed their places in front of them, across the table.

"Very well." Guiche said clearing his throat. "We all have several questions."

"Yes, we do." Amethyst said through clenched teeth as she tapped a finger against the table.

"Miss Amethyst, please. I understand that you're distressed-"

"Distressed? Oh, no, I don't think you understand anything. This is my family what we're talking about here!"

"Family that is right here, you know?" A dash of anger coated Louise's words. "If you have any questions, just ask."

Amethyst pressed her lips into a thin line as she took a calming breath. "Louise, just... what the hell?"

"I take from your reaction that you didn't talk to my mother."

"I did! She did mention that something had happened to you but didn't go into detail. She told us that she wanted you to tell us in person."

That wasn't something that Louise was expecting to hear, but did manage to calm her down. "Well," She started, folding her arms. "I can understand that me being a vampire now was a surprise."

Guiche's eyes widened in surprise. Curiously enough, Charlotte's and Siesta's didn't.

"Who gives a fuck about you been a vampire?" Amethyst slammed her palms against the table as she raised up. "That's the last of our worries! Louise, you ram through several buildings, used dangerous magic in a crowded place, and put a lot of people in danger! It's nothing short of a miracle that no one died."

Kirche raised a hand. "That was me! I lead people away."

"Thank you for that, but that doesn't change the issue that she," Amethyst aimed an accusatory index at Louise. "Almost killed a lot of people!"

For her part, Louise felt like rolling her eyes. "Almost, but I didn't. And I object to your arguments." She said in an even, almost emotionally dead tone. "We were tracking a dangerous vampire and we thought it was you."

"And that's an excuse to put a lot of innocents at risk?"

"Yes." Louise nodded. "This vampire has shown itself to be extremely dangerous. We had to deal with him as fast as possible or risk more people getting hurt later."

Several emotions flashed through Amethyst's face as her lower lip trembled. There were surprise, anger and a bit of pity. It finally settled in what looked to be a mix of sadness and pain. "And that's why I ask what happened to you." She shook her head as she returned to her seat. "You used to be such a sweet girl."

Something brew inside Louise's chest. Her fingers curled and the muscles of her neck tensed, but before she could answer to that, Guiche spoke up.

"Okay, that will be enough." He said, raising his voice as he gestured at both parties. "Miss Amethyst, I respect your concern over your family's safety but I have seen Louise in action, and right now I dare to say that I might know her better than you do."

The woman averted her eyes without saying anything.

"Her… condition," He continued. "Is as much of a surprise to me as it was to you, but I trust her skill as a warrior and a fellow servant to Tristain."

"Thank you." Louise offered him a courteous nod.

"And Louise. As I said, I respect you as an ally but I won't tolerate excessive use of force. If you do want to help us I expect you to moderate your actions."

As a reply, she just grunted.

"And finally, if you two have anything personal to discuss, do it later at your own time because right now we have work to do." He stared at Louise and then at Amethyst. Both women remained quiet. "Now, Louise, you said you were looking for a vampire?"

She folded her arms. "We are here following the murderer of Count Mott."

"We did hear something about that before departing. As I understood it, her Majesty had sent a specialist to look at the case."

"Pad Batard!" Kirche chimed in raising her palm. "Nice guy, kind of cute. We worked together to solve the case, and after that he continued his investigation in Tristain and we came here."

Guiche hummed as he scratched his chin. "I see. I'll send a letter back to the Capital asking for more information on that, maybe he found something of interest."

"We answer one of your questions." Louise said. "So it's fair you answer one of ours."

"It is, yes."

"Then why are you here?"

Guiche rolled a piece of paper on the table. "Her Majesty, Queen Henrietta, tasked me with following a trail of money laundering." He pointed at several entries in the paper, where there was a map of the kingdoms together with a list of names. "Several officials of the capital, that we now know were Reconquista sympathizers, were draining the kingdom's coffers and sending it away."

"For what purpose?"

"We still don't know, and we hit a serious roadblock here." He tapped the map where Hofleur was, with a name and a description next to it. "We followed the trail to this city, to a building that was located in the collapsed tunnel. That was why we were investigating it."

Louise and Kirche read the description of the building in question, and then shared a look. "A shoe factory."

"Yes." Guiche confirmed. "Is that important?"

Louise threw Kirche a grin. "Want to make the honors?"

"Of course I do!" The Germanian cleared her throat and adopted a serious expression. "Do you know that Count Mott was murdered?"

Guiche narrowed his eyes. "We just talked about it."

"Oh, yes! Silly me." She slapped her forehead. "But something that we didn't mention was that we discovered that Mott was smuggling something inside shoe boxes, and that he had contacts in this city."

"That... is a very interesting coincidence." Guiche pressed his lips into a thin line. "Did you figure out what he was smuggling?"

This time Louise continued. "We don't know, but if this is related then it surely was gold."

He folded his arms, rolling his tongue in his mouth as he assimilated the new information. "More reasons to contact her highness and ask for help. Anything else to add?"

"Not much." Louise shrugged. "As we said, we figured out that the assassin was a vampire that had come from here, and that Mott himself also kept correspondence with someone in this city too."

"There's nothing defining," Guiche tapped a finger against the table. "But we can't ignore all these many coincidences. We might all be after the same people."

Kirche cocked her head to the side. "Is Reconquista working with vampires now?"

"I did see them working with orcs in Albion."

"Whatever the case." Guiche put a stop to that line of thought before it could derail. "You should know that the one who was actively hunting a vampire down was the Gallian princess."

"One of sister's maid was murdered here." That was the first time Charlotte had spoken during the discussion. "Blood drained. Wants revenge. Offered Tristain help in exchange of theirs."

Amethyst huffed. "The silver lining in all this is that the vampire might not be an experienced one. During the last several days, he conducted several high-profile attacks on different parts of the city."

Louise's neck stiffened, as Kirche threw her an amused look.

"About that," Louise caught in her own hand. "That was us."

Guiche raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"What?"

"That was us!" Kirche confirmed. "We conducted those high-profile," She made air-quotes, "attacks."

It took the other group a moment to react, and when they did Amethyst started by jumping off her chair. "That was you?! You two were the ones who killed those people?"

Louise felt her patient running dry once again as she rolled her eyes. "You'll have to describe what 'people' you're talking about, but probably."

"The family of bakers?"

"They made their living kidnapping and ransoming people. We freed their captive after killing them."

"The florist?"

"Underground medic. He used corpses to heal his criminal clients."

"The butcher?"

"He-" Louise started answering, but then realized she didn't know what they were talking about. "Wait, what butcher?"

"He lived in the fourth level, tunnel south."

"No, that wasn't us." She shook her head. "When did that happen?"

"A week ago."

"We weren't here a week ago."

"Neither were we!" Amethyst threw her hand up in the air, looking as if she had aged a hundred years in a moment. "Why did you do this? We were at the scenes of those attacks, it truly looked like the work of a monster."

"Hey, don't complain!" Kirche interjected. "That means we did a good job."

"A good job?! What could have driven you to do something so horrible?"

To stop her from keep talking, Louise put a hand over Kirche's shoulder. "We wanted to make the attacks look like the work of a young vampire. The idea was to attract the main vampire to us, but we didn't know that there was another, completely unrelated, group of vampires around."

Amethyst stared at her. Her whole body trembled, and then suddenly it stopped. One by one every trace of emotion left her face as her hands fell lifeless to her sides. "Lord Gramond, I'll retreat to my room for the night."

"O-of course, lady Amethyst."

"Come on, Daphne." She gestured at her sister to follow, and in their way out of the room, she threw a glance at her nephew. "And Louise, tomorrow the three of us will have a long talk."

"Oh, you're in trou-ble!" Kirche giggled.

Louise kept her sight steady, staring at Amethyst. "I'll be looking forwards to it, aunt."

They slammed the door on their way out.

"With all that said," Guiche looked at Louise, the way he fidgeted on his chair suggesting he wasn't sure how to react to what had happened. "There's something that's still unclear to me."

"And what's that?"

"Why were you at the tunnels tonight?"

Louise sighed, tired. It was good to finally answer something that was actually relevant to the problem at hand. "We were following a new clue."

They told him the story of the sisters Lucina and Odette, and something piqued Guiche's curiosity.

"That is very intriguing. If their father worked there they might know something, and that's without taking into account the mystery of their parents' disappearance."

"It sounded suspicious to us too."

"Well," He clapped his hands together, announcing the end of the meeting. "We'll continue this tomorrow morning. It's late and we're all tired, so I'll request lady Isabella for two extra rooms for you two."

Louise offered him a courteous nod. "Thank you, Guiche."

He led them out of the conference room, deeper into the villa. Halfways through, Siesta and Charlotte parted ways following a group of maids, with Kirche promising to go after them once she had seen her room.

Louise talked with Guiche about the situation back in Tristain, about new developments involving Reconquista and what Henrietta was doing to fight them. For her part, Kirche spent her time bouncing from one side of the place to the other, checking the new furniture and commenting on the broken pieces of wall. "You know, I think the vandals were into something here. This room looks much better with this wall out."

The other two ignored her as they kept walking. "I must say that Princess Isabella has been very accommodating of us." Guiche comments.

"That's a surprise if I must say the truth. How did you get her to help you?"

"Much of it was Lady Charlotte's doing, but also the fact that Isabella is looking for a vampire too. She lent us her forces to comb the city, and is letting us stay at her villa, under the condition that we help her find it."

"Sounds reasonable."

They reached the dining room and there Louise found another face she recognized from the Academy: Montmorency. The blonde noble was seated at the table, drinking tea with an older redhead that Louise found familiar for some reason. A brief look with the head was all the acknowledgment that Montmorency gave her, but when the redhead set her eyes on Louise it was as if she'd seen a ghost. A ghost who had pissed in her tea.

"It's you!" She shot out of her chair, pointing at Louise.

"It's me." Louise deadpanned. "What about it?"

The redhead pushed her chair away as she walked to Louise, an angry expression marrying her face. "I lost my job because of you!"

The only thing that Louise had to offer was a blank stare. "I'll need more than that."

"Wait," The woman recoiled, surprise mixing with the anger of her face. "Don't you remember me?"

"Should I?"

"I'm Carmen!" She whipped a hand up. "We met in Tristania, I told you about Borgia and then you went and murdered him!"

Memories of the event rushed to the forefront of Louise's mind, "Ah, now I remember. I was pretending to be the daughter of a wine merchant back then. Sorry for your loss."

Carmen didn't say anything but her face did turn an unhealthy shade of red.

She calmed down when Montmorency put a hand over her shoulder. "Come on, miss. Let's continue our talk somewhere else."

"Yes, yes. I need a drink."

The two women left the room, but not before throwing a shared angry look at Louise.

"So, what did I miss?" Kirche asked looking at her.

"Allow me." Guiche stepped in. "Borgia was a crime lord in Tristania, and Carmen was a…" He struggled with what to say.

"Prostitute." Louise finished his thought.

"Yes, a prostitute. One that he liked to hire. Miss Vallière here questioned Carmen about Borgia and used that information to kill him. Because of the rumors that she had been somehow involved, all her clients left her and she was forced to move in with a blacksmith friend of hers."

"That wasn't nice of you, Louise." Kirche admonished Louise with a raised finger, then grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I know, I'm so much not the right person to tell you that."

"Still," Louise shrugged. "How did she end with you?"

"With Montmorency, we met a lot of interesting people while working around Tristania."

"Did you go to the Charming Fairies Inn?"

"Oh, yes, I did." Guiche replied with reddened cheeks. "Both of us actually worked there for a time while searching for information. Montmorency looked so cute dressed in their uniform!"

"I'm amazed you managed to convince her to dress on that."

Kirche cocked her head to one side. "I don't know what this Inn is, but it sounds like a place I need to visit."

"Yeah, definitely." Louise told her with a smile. "And how did you two meet Carmen?"

"During a meeting with the blacksmith she's staying with, Montmorency started talking to her and they get along really well." Guiche took a deep breath. "My dear hasn't been sleeping very well since that bandits attacked the Academy, but Carmen helped her. She's now happier, and that's why she hired Carmen as her… what did she call it? Head nurse, I think."

"Good for both of them. I'll try not to bother them too much."

"Thank you. They don't, well…"

"Like me too much?" Louise finished his incomplete sentence.

"No, they don't."

Kirche tapped her foot angrily against the floor. "Why's that? Louise didn't do anything wrong."

"Well," Guiche rubbed the back of his neck. "Carmen had to find a new job."

"Because Louise killed an asshole! It wasn't her fault."

"Well, yeah. And Montmorency… honestly I don't know why she doesn't like Miss Louise."

"Woman stuff. Must be woman stuff."

"I'm so glad it wasn't me the one to say that! Now, follow me, I'll take you to your rooms."

Kirche's room had been an unremarkable little thing. With little time to prepare, Isabella's maids hadn't had time to properly fix it, with the broken walls and furniture being a testament to the building's age. At the very least it wasn't dirty. Still, it wasn't her intention to use it any time soon, and after parting ways with Louise and Guiche she went in search of Charlotte.

"You won't believe all the things we saw! There was this parade where people dressed up as skeletons and danced with huge masks! And there was some really nice music too. I even managed to convince Louise to dance a couple of pieces with me. Later she took me to train, and got this huge thing built. It looked like a giant wood puppet with dangling arms and she called it 'The Pendulum'. That one was the worst one by far!"

Next to her, Charlotte didn't reply.

Both girls were carrying tall towers of books that Charlotte had requested help with, taking them down one of the villa's corridors.

"After that, we went to solve a murder mystery! I felt like a detective from one of my books! It was so exciting. Except for all the corpses. That part wasn't very nice. The worst one was the Count. He was this dry… thing that looked as if someone had dehydrated a piece of meat. It wasn't nice. But then we found out that the murderer had come to Honfleur! I so much wanted to visit all the shops and buy nice things. But the place wasn't as nice as I thought it would be. We did help a lot of people but it was still very ugly. I didn't like it."

"We are here." Charlotte interrupted her, standing in front of a large door. How she managed to find her way with the books blocking her view, was beyond Kirche's understanding.

"Allow me." She stepped up and opened the door for her.

Inside the room, there was a circle of chairs. One of them was occupied by the maid that Kirche had seen at the academy, Siesta, and half of the others were occupied by Isabell's maids. All of them had books in their hands.

"Now," Siesta said looking at the other maids. "Who wants to read the next paragraph?" All the hands raised up. "Remember what I told you, not all of you need to do this." All the hands went down. The maids exchanged glances, and then one timid hand went up again. "Okay, we are making progress!"

"What are you doing?" Kirche whispered into Charlotte's ear, not wanting to interrupt whatever that was.

"Teaching them how to read." Charlotte set her pile of books on a table next to the door.

"Oh." Kirche set her own pile next to Charlotte's. "And you want them to read these ones next?"

Charlotte offered her a sharp nod. "Sister wants them to read more Gallian books."

"Well, in case you're interested, I have some Germanian books that…" A heavy book came down on Kirche's head. "Ouch! What was that for?" Charlotte narrowed her eyes. "I was talking about the mystery books! Not the, you know, more personal books."

Charlotte remained staring at her for a moment longer. "Acceptable. Want to stay?"

"Nah, I'd only distract you. See you tomorrow."

Not wanting to interrupt the group, Kirche exited the room in silence, only waving at Siesta on her way out, who replied with a wave of her own.

Back on the corridors, Kirche rubbed her hands together. She walked into the main hall, and from there she took the stairs to the third floor, where she took a turn to the left. It was the third door to the right after the portrait of the guy with the big nose. She raised her fist ready to knock at it. She took a step back. She walked back and forth, went to knock again but once more she retreated.

And that was when the door opened, and from the room came out a disheveled Louise who seemed to have been trying to sleep. "What do you want?"

Kirche stared at her, pressing her lips together. "That power of yours to look through walls is very convenient, isn't it?"

As a response, Louise just narrowed her eyes at her.

"Okay, look. Can I come in? I want to talk for a moment."

Louise's remained serious but took a step back allowing her to enter.

"Thank you!"

Louise's room alone was bigger than the one they had shared in the inn, but despite that it looked to be in a worse condition. Discarded tools lay scattered over the stone floor and against the stone walls, and the curtains were in ribbons, barely hanging from the hooks above the window. At least the mattress was in one piece, even if the legs of the bed had given up and was now resting on the floor.

"Hey, at least it's not dusty!" Kirche commented with humor. She also noticed a distinctive burnt smell, and a pile of blackened tiles and bricks next to the window.

"Saw a rat." Louise explained between yawns. "Burnt the rat."

"Are you sure you killed- oh, yes, magic eyes. Silly me."

Louise sat on the bed and signaled Kirche to take a seat in front of her. "The maids didn't reach this part yet, I think."

Kirche took her boots out before sitting cross-legged before Louise. "I doubt they were expecting company."

"That too." Louise suppressed a yawn. "So, what do you want?"

Kirche narrowed her eyes, leaning forward as she fidgeted with her toes. She darted her eyes around, twisting her head as if trying to roll the ideas inside her head. Louise remained to stare at her, tapping a finger against her knee.

After a moment the Germanian finally managed to get her ideas in order and asked away. "This was a normal week for you, wasn't it?"

"In what sense?"

"In that..." She scratched the back of her nape, bringing it from the top of her head down to her neck and shoulders. "How do I say this? Nothing of this was new for you, was it?"

"No, it really wasn't." With a shake of her head, Louise relaxed her shoulder. "I had to deal with many kidnappings, mass murderers, and vampires in the past."

"You sound so cool when you say that!" A smile adorned Kirche's face. "So damn cool."

"Thank you, I guess." Louise folded her arms over her chest while she narrowed her eyes at Kirche. "But I think that the main question here is how you are holding up."

The smile vanished, replaced by a dark shadow. "Definitely not as cool." She stopped throwing her eyes around, focusing now on her feet. "It was scary, it was uncomfortable, and unlike sex there wasn't a reward at the end!" She chuckled, but it sounded forced and unwanted. "Except for that one guy we saved. Saving him felt nice."

"We did a lot of good this last week."

"I'm trying to tell myself that but I just don't feel it!" She leaned back, letting herself fall to the floor. "Apart from that one guy, what else was there? When we arrived the people we were looking for were already dead! Yeah, yeah, we punished the ones behind it but what does it matter? We were too late!" Those last words came out as a croaked yell.

Louise closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Even if you don't see that, we did save a lot of people doing that. By stopping the murderers we stopped more people from dying in the future."

"It still feels like a defeat. I really wanted to bring the missing people back to their families. I wanted... I don't know, to feel like a hero? Have fun at least?"

"You of all people should know that you rarely get a happy ending."

"I thought that with you I could get one!"

There was a moment of pause. "Is that why you're with me? Because you think I can make you happy?"

"Well, yes!" Slowly, Kirche pushed herself back into a seated position. "I'm selfish like that, you know?"

"You and me both in that case. Why would I want to be with someone who doesn't make me happy?"

Kirche swished a finger back and forth. "That is an excellent question."

"Still, going back to what brought you here, the death of people is a horrible thing, but you help how and where you can and then move on without looking back. Sometimes that's the only thing you can do."

"I know, I know. I just can't stop thinking about it. The same way I can't stop thinking about your aunts. They were so powerful. And scary. Kind of like you."

Louise raised an amused eyebrow. "You don't have the hots for them now, do you?"

"What? No! Well, maybe a little. But, look, what I want to say is -ugh!- they were on our side, but I didn't know that and they could have killed me so easily! And I am a powerful mage if I can say so myself. I couldn't have done anything if they had actually taken me seriously, and I can't stop thinking that there are many vampires and worse like them out there."

"Much, much worse." Louise confirmed. "I faced things that could have easily killed them."

Kirche's shoulders dropped as she put her hands together, toying with her thumbs. "Well, then… just… what happens when someone like you isn't around to help people?"

"Then people die."

"That is terrifying, isn't it?"

"You never thought about that?"

"Of course I didn't! I don't like thinking about stuff like that. I mean, okay, I always knew that bad stuff happens but, how to put it?"

"Knowing that something happens but not knowing exactly what allows you to say to yourself 'maybe it's not so bad', 'maybe I'm exaggerating'. But that changes when you have it in front of your eyes."

"And you realize that it was even worse than you ever imagined." She finished the idea. "Yeah, that scared the shit out of me. I don't like feeling like this. I don't like feeling scared and sad. I want to see everything, to explore everything, but I don't want to see the ugly of it and I don't know if I can ignore it anymore. How do you deal with that?"

Louise scowled, looking down and shaking her head. "By becoming a bitch, Kirche."

That made Kirche flinch, who widened her eyes in surprise. "That wasn't the answer I was expecting."

"It's the one I can give to you. That or going mad. I don't care about helping everyone, only those I care about or I have in front of me at the moment. In that regard, Carmen is right, I'm not a good person."

"I don't know. I mean, impulsive and impatient sure, but you aren't a bad person either."

"Thank you."

"You are welcome!" Kirche released a sigh. "I still have no idea what I'm supposed to do."

"Sorry that I couldn't help you."

"Eh, it's okay." She dismissed the issue with a wave of her hand. "Say, can I sleep here tonight? I'm not trying anything weird! I just don't want to be alone right now?"

Louise threw her a measuring look. "What about Charlotte?"

"She's with Siesta teaching Isabella's creepy maids how to read. I don't know when they'll be done and I don't want to interrupt them either."

Louise's eyes narrowed as she looked Kirche up and down. "We are not sharing a bed."

"Of course not! I'll bring my own mattress!"

"Then sure, make yourself at home."

"Thanks."

...

A/N: After overwhelming support for smaller chapters (mostly from my betas) I started writing them in smaller chunks. I hope this helps me publish them faster but we'll see how things go. Hope you enjoy!